Britain’s Got Talent Election “Hung” by Preposterous Procedure

The only thing missing was Simon Cowell sneering and sighing last night. Welcome to déjà vu all over again. The UK seeks to one up Florida’s 2000 election with the specter of a hung Parliament, charges of polling site malfeasance, and strict, almost slavish adherence to procedure over common sense. Big Ben chimed 10 pm last night and, according to the rules, “polling closed”. Huge turnouts, polling stations running out of numbered paper ballots, students unsure of their address/polling station, and voters standing in long queues, turned the normally orderly, polite, and proper process of casting one’s vote into complete chaos.

Naturally the losing Labour Party immediately called for an investigation. The Tories? Not so much.

UK poll math permutations are nearly impossible to fathom. The numbers are clear: 326 seats are needed to form a government. With 30 of 649 contests still undecided 16 hours after polls closed, those simple numbers have caused global financial market chaos and currency devaluation.

It seems simple enough. Get 326 seats, your party wins and you form a government. But the arcane ‘first past the post’ system means that even though the Tories gained a stunning 90+ seats, it will not be enough to form an outright majority. So because Labour’s Gordon Brown is the sitting Prime Minister, despite horrific losses and with no clear majority himself, his party gets first crack at forming a coalition government.

That is likely to fail because the Liberal Democrats’ Clegg has said it should be the party who won the most seats that goes 1st. So breathless pundits will pontificate through at least two rounds of attempts and then as the crisis and pundits HEADS EXPLODE near the end of May, just before the Queen’s speech on the 25th, cooler heads will prevail and a coalition government will be formed.

The price will likely cost Brown his leadership of the Party (and being PM) and several key Cabinet seats will go to the Liberal Dems and other marginal parties.

So “spin, baby, spin” will be the order of the day. Even the current 52 seats controlled by the Liberal Democratss (who spectacularly flamed out after showing huge debate promise), will not be enough to push Labour across the finish line. So a rag-tag coalition is likely with the 11 seats controlled by the Welsh and Scot national parties mean huge concessions for their countries and at current they still fall short. So, say hello to Caroline Lucas, the Green Party’s first ever MP who could really become the kingmaker in this down-is-up election.

The fact that thousands of UK students did not know their address and thus their polling location being frightening enough, this election and its quaint paper ballots was almost enough to erase the bad memories of Arizona’s busted voting machines and potential electoral fraud.

These proper Brits know how to conduct a “proper” election count. The rules will be followed with checkers checking checkers. They do seem to suffer though in making sure everyone who wants to vote does indeed get the chance to vote.

In the meantime though, we get to watch an interesting mating dance of party dinosaurs. Watch this space…

About Denis Campbell

Denis G. Campbell is co-host of The Three Muckrakers, a global political podcast (found under UK Progressive podcasts on iTunes and Podcast Nation). Weekly he joins former BBC anchor Phil Parry and Falmouth University’s Dr. Dario Llinares discussing the week’s political scene in the UK, USA and around the globe. He is the founder and editor of UK Progressive Magazine and a frequent Americas, political, business and Middle East commentator for: BBC, itv, CNN International, PBS, msnbc, China Radio International, HKTV (Hong Kong), ETV (India), NOS (Netherlands) and Al Jazeera English.

Denis is the author of eight books including the soon to be released Letters from Teabagistan- The 2016 Clown Car Republican Primary Field. Others include: Egypt Unshackled - a look at the social media timeline of the 18-days leading up to the fall of Hosni Mubarak, Billionaire Boys Election Freak Show about the 2012 election and his latest, Show Me You Care on the decline of global service. All are available in paperback and amazon’s Kindle store worldwide.

He just completed his 26th season as a FIBA basketball referee, covering semi-final and Championship games in last weekend’s Wales Final Four weekend in Cardiff.

Comments

Winner (by 1 vote) -take-all – rather than something like proportional power-sharing – is a recipe for electoral skulduggery – and gives a premium to votes from the most marginal and least concerned voters. This is true especially when the power to be won will hold for extended time, and it is true at either level: the level of a mass popular election, or the level of a decision-vote within a legislature.

The nearest thing to a true cure would do away with all-powerful long-term legislatures and elections to them. Instead, public decision-making would be unbundled into many decisions, no one of which has big stakes, and each decision made by democratic deliberate means – by a distinct randomly selected citizen jury.

The Body Politic

Dave Zirin: She is our Jordan. She is our Jim Brown. She is our Babe Ruth, calling his shots. She is no longer content to dodge bullets, but understands how to stop them. Serena is that rare athlete who has not only mastered her sport. She’s harnessed it.